Rush of Heaven by Ema McKinley with Cheryl Ricker

These were the words Jesus spoke to Ema on Christmas Eve before He straightened her crooked foot, hand, neck, and spine, and restored her mobility.

Easter weekend, eighteen years earlier, an ordinary workday turned into a nightmare when Ema McKinley passed out and was left hanging upside down in the storage room.

Rather than improving, Ema’s body became progressively bent and disfigured. Doctors diagnosed Ema with reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD), an extremely painful trauma-induced disease which led to Ema’s hand and foot deformities, painful sores, insomnia, gastrological distress, curvature of the neck and spine, heart and lung failure, and permanent confinement to a wheelchair.

Once an athletic, powerhouse woman with multiple jobs and volunteer positions, Ema became a modern-day Job who lost everything except her faith and desire to trust God more fully. Ema wrestled with pain, anger, and unforgiveness, but now takes the reader on a healing miracle encounter of Biblical proportions.

Cheryl Ricker and I have been friends on social media for several years. When she first told me about this project, I couldn’t wait to read it. Rush of Heaven showed up on my doorstep three days ago. I breezed through it in one morning and the following afternoon. The playfulness and faith of Ema shines through in the handwriting of Cheryl Ricker.

If you want to read an extraordinary story reminiscent of Job’s suffering—followed by a miracle—pick up this book. You may well be laughing and crying on the same page.

“Jesus gave me this miracle for you too!”

— Ema McKinley

*Book releases on October 21, 2014

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Lucille Zimmerman is a Licensed Professional Counselor with a private practice in Littleton, CO and an affiliate faculty teacher at Colorado Christian University.

She is also the author of Renewed: Finding Your Inner Happy in an Overwhelmed World. Through practical ideas and relatable anecdotes, readers can better understand their strengths and their passions—and address some of the underlying struggles or hurts that make them want to keep busy or minister to others to the detriment of themselves. Renewed can help nurture those areas of women’s lives to use them better for work, family, and service. It gives readers permission to examine where they spend their energy and time, and learn to set limits and listen to “that inner voice."

6 days agoby lucille_zimmermanBreakfast when you have houseguests = Pizza and (Palisade) Peaches

1 week agoby lucille_zimmermanI love writing notes to the kids we sponsor around the world. I love when my two-year-old grandbaby points to their pictures on the refrigerator. She knows their names. Honestly I feel like my kids do more for me than I do for them. I covet their prayers! #compassion#foodforthehungry#feedmystarvingchildren#worldvision I always put stickers in the notes I sent back to them. What do you like to send to children that your sponsor?